31 August, 2018 Friday
Morning is here again. Tea is Jasmine Green and I poured it a bit ago and forgot to set the timer. Oh Well. Still steeping. It’ll be a deep green…
Dishwasher emptied, dogs outted except for the oldest, the littlest, the mightiest, and the loudest. She is shrimped up nestled with the biggest two footed in the roost. She will come when she needs. She has earned the right. She is 12 and a half. Thats an old dog.
Dreams were these and a bit more too dim. One had the word candida. The only memory of that one. Hmmm. Time to stop the bread maybe?
I dreamt my husband and I were at some hotel near DC. An old cavern of a thing with grounds and many vaulted halls. Over hearing someone say Princess Margaret and her husband were here because the Queen was seeing Obama. Next thing I know, there are three who walk by and as my eavesdrop hears that high Brit cadence in their chat, I look and see the one in the middle is a middle aged but healthy happy vibrant Princess Margaret.
She sees me over her shoulder and registers my delight and immediately her two companions try to fend me off but she says, “No, let her be.” I am brave and brazen here. She is smiling at me so I approach. She is happy at the sight of me. Stands and walks to me. Lovely she is. Dark curls, great bones and red lipstick and character that comes with wise age. She has a vibrant blouse untucked over jeans. And her frame is small compared to my tall. She asks for chairs for both off us to face to face and we sit close enough so she can hold both my hands. She really wanted to see me. I tell her how impressed I am with the graceful adaptation her sister has pulled off over so many many many changes in her time. She smiles and says, “I know.” And I notice a ring she wears, its gold and bejeweled in that regal way. She removes it from her hand and gives it to me. Its yours, she says. And its time for her to go. I find my husband and tell him, “Princess Margaret gave me a ring, see?” I am so pleased. He says, “Oh.”
I dreamt of a big, lime green, shiny, snakey swamp thing slithering out of the muck on the other side of a storm battered fence. Thick and slimy, I see it just as the dogs find it. They attack and so does he and strikes my Deerhound’s hairy snout several times before he slimes away to find the muck. My Deerhound’s fine. He is a mountain of a dog and impervious to slime.
I wake in a slice of moonlight. The roost catches moon and shines it on me. I am Cancer, Crab and full of moon. Wax and wane. Always there but might hide from time to time. Its where I go to stock up for more.
Then I dreamt a long thing about some neighbors I was nice to until they dragged my puppy Zoi in a nose snare home to me cuz she had come to play. They saw nothing wrong with how they dragged her. Oh My GOD!!! She was screaming. I yelled at them to go and not come back. How dare they hurt that sweet sweet dog…
I would never let that happen in real time. Remember, I have fences.
Yesterday, I drove across a bridge. So what, you say. Well, for me it was a lot. I have lived along a river for a year and always made sure someone drove me over that bridge. Its metal, its narrow, its guard rails ripple with its metal’s memories of those that drifted just an inch and below it is the river. Wide and deep and wind whipped frothy. It scares me shitless.
On the other side is a whole other world. Its behind the spit and polish over here. These little towns sprang up just over a century ago. First Peoples had been here long long time. 1805 Lewis and Clark find a camp along the big river where another river met it. Camp was named Waucoma or place of big trees. Then a white family came and claimed the land in 1854 and those big trees began to fall. “Progress” plants its foot firmly in 1895 on logs and apples and the Japanese pulled stumps for fields like mine to sprout. That’s this side of the big river.
The other side, the one across that scary bridge, its “Progress” settled a little differently. A man and his wife who both had God in the good way, came and perched beside the local tribe in 1853. A white fleshed salmon fish who spawned in the river on that side was plentiful and the tribe dried fish in the ever flowing wind which is the gift thats here if it doesn’t throw you. There is a story bout that friendship for another time but I will tell you now there are no more white fleshed salmon fish at all anywhere thanks to us. The tribe is gone too, thanks to us. But they live elsewhere. They, thank the river gods, are still around somewhere, just not here.
So yesterday, I drove the bridge, and before I did, I asked for help to do it. I was fine. I drove the other side which is steeper, starker, less peopled but somehow sweeter. Slower. I like slow and sleepy. Thank you.
A Yoga friend had visited a bit ago and sported a ring I liked. Ya, there might have been a reason Princess Margaret and her ring appeared last night. The Yogi lives sometimes across the bridge and said her ring was birthed there. So as the tiny town appeared in my windshield, the Yogi and her ring came up. “Hmm. Might go see. Where is that spot? There, I see it. And a parking space, yes!!!” So I parked got out and entered. Glass cases along one side and lots of stuff along the walls and on racks in the middle. There is a woman behind the counter helping people with repairs and I ask her if her stuff is in the cases. She says, “Yes, that case. The one with 30 percent off.” It had been the case I liked.
And in that case, there was a ring.
She finished with repairs. Talks a lot. Its good, her chat. Been here for a while. I ask to see that ring. She opens up her case. She made it, yes she did. Its special cuz the bottom’s square. And see, it fits. How much? Oh and 30 percent off and no sales tax because I live across the river? Not bad. Definitely. I leave some money. I tell her I had braved the bridge today. And found her ring. She likes that. I like her. I leave and whisk away back across the bridge.
So I bridged a distance yesterday. Left my known and wandered into something new. “And it was good.” Thank you, Ernest. And then Princess Margaret came and that slimey thing too. And, of course, The Moon.
The Zoi is finding brave too. Last two days late afternoon she sees me come to gather her inside and runs to the gate and looks down the drive. I have a leash. I hear her ask, “Please, Mom.” Why not. So leashed together, we venture out of fences and wander just a bit together and come back. Thats all.
Sunny and only 75 today. That deep green tea is twitching me a bit. Time to go.
Ta.
Tea With Me 